Anger Management
By Isaac Tong
Tournament Date: Saturday, December 21, 2002
Number of people: 30
Location: 401 Convenience, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Format: Type II

This is the second time that I’ve played in a tournament outside of 
Brampton. The first time was at the same store. I was there for the Friday 
Night Magic Booster Draft and I was doing damn decent until it started 
getting real late and I had to drag my ass back home. This time was 
different as the tournament started in the afternoon…although I expected the 
start to be at 1 PM instead of quarter to two. Ah, well. I didn’t buy a lot 
of Onslaught as I wasn’t sure which cards would be helpful so don’t expect 
too much here.

Lands

12 Forest
10 Mountain

Green Spells and Creatures

4 Wild Mongrel
4 Basking Rootwalla
3 Arrogant Wurm
4 Llanowar Elves
1 Call of the Herd
4 Phantom Centaur
2 Naturalize
1 Silklash Spider
3 Brawn

Red Spells and Creatures

3 Browbeat
1 Burning Wish
4 Anger
4 Fiery Temper
4 Fledging Dragon

Sideboard

1 Relentless Assault
4 Flaring Pain
1 Devastating Dreams
1 Insurrection
1 Shaman’s Trance
3 Creeping Mold
1 Nantuko Blightcutter
1 Nantuko Cultivator
2 Steamclaw

You ever get the feeling that decks have a mind of their own? I think what 
contributed to how I did was how my deck was feeling as well as me. Let’s 
start by examining the rounds in detail.

Round 1 - Isaac Tong VS. Cory Conrad

Just what the hell was this guy playing? It looked like a typical blue green 
deck with Merfolk Looters, Mongrels, Logic, Burst, Roar and other things but 
he also put in a bit of black. Why? Psychatog. Yep…by combining that 
Psychatog with a bit of an army along with Wonder, he flew over and smacked 
me up before I can put anything decent up. No Spider showed up. I couldn’t 
cast the Dragons. Yes…I was a sitting duck. Even when I swapped in 
Steamclaw, he still had enough stuff to beat me. I guess the reason why the 
deck lost was because it felt confident. After all, it did pretty well 
against another blue green when I played prior to the tournament.

Rounds 0-1		Games 0-2

Round 2 - Isaac Tong VS. Max Schwartz

My deck was pretty pissed while I was just wondering how to build a better 
type II deck. Cory was nice enough to give me a few tips so now I have a bit 
of an idea of where to go for my next deck. This guy was complaining about 
how his deck was crap without the four Birds of Paradise. I saw what he 
meant. He had mana problems and was just stalling with Squirrels’ Nest. He 
didn’t even get Opposition out until late in the game and I was already 
overrunning him with tons of creatures. Yup…I think the deck was pretty 
angry by this time as I was drawing lots of good stuff.

Rounds 1-1		Games 2-2

Round 3 - Isaac Tong VS. Susan Edwards

Wow…never expected a somewhat elderly lady to be playing but here she is. 
She was playing with red, white and green. And with white and green, I could 
smell Brushhoppers and possibly Glory. I guessed right. Glory came in game 1 
and she had a Mongrel with Elephant Guide. But she made a mistake when she 
gave all her creatures protection from green to try and get past my 
Rootwallas and Wild Mongrel…if you don’t see what I’m talking about then you 
have got to get some serious help in understanding the game. Eventually, I 
got two Fledging Dragons, pumped with Threshold to take the first game. The 
second game was a lot tougher. She had two Arrogant Wurms and cast Glory to 
fly over me. All I had were a few grounded creatures as well as seven lands. 
I had a Burning Wish in my hand so I decided to use it to fetch Insurrection 
in case I drew another land. Then, I drew the eighth land and whooped 
happily as I used Insurrection to take her army and deal 15 damage to her, 
winning me the game. Yes…the deck was still feeling mad.

Rounds 2-1		Games 4-2

Round 4 - Isaac Tong VS. Daniel Jang

When I got a glimpse of a Grim Lavamancer, I started thinking that this was 
red Sligh but in fact, this was something different. Yes, it still had a lot 
of burn, which he used to fry my Elves with but he wasn’t drawing his trump 
card, which was Ensnaring Bridge. So in the end, it was Mongrels and 
Centaurs laying the smack down for both games. Looks like my angry deck is 
starting to cool off.

Rounds 3-1		Games 6-2

Round 5 - Isaac Tong VS. Kyle Smith

By now the deck was feeling pretty damn confident as it was performing well. 
If we won this round, then we break into the top 8 but sadly that wasn’t so. 
Bad draws in both games combined with the fact that Kyle used the W/G Glory 
strategy combined with the Anger strategy plus Elephant Guide on top of a 
Phantom Centaur equals me getting crushed in both games.

Rounds 3-2		Games 6-4

All in all, I didn’t do that bad. Hopefully, my W/G deck that I’m making can 
help me get even further. Going on to props and slops.

Props

My folks for putting up with me playing in Toronto this time. 401 
Convenience for holding a lot of tournaments.

Slops

Little space to move around and play. That was the only thing that really 
bugged me.

Last but not least. I have a new e-mail address. It’s no longer at 
InterPacific Online or Rogers. It’s at…AOL. Yes, laugh if you want. I’m not 
totally happy about it but what can I do? The only thing that I hate about 
AOL is “You’ve Got Mail!” Just show a visual display instead of having the 
voice come out of nowhere. That would be so much simpler. Until next time!!

Isaac Tong
Isaactong@aol.com